The present invention relates to a device for improving the field of vision of aircraft that do not have a sufficient transparent surface area. It can be applied notably to aircraft whose transparent surface area available in the front does not enable the pilot to have sufficient vision to make a landing.
A new generation of supersonic civilian aircraft is being prepared. These aircraft and those of a previous generation, notably the Concorde, have the common characteristic of a high angle of incidence when approaching the ground. This makes it difficult to obtain downward viewing through the transparent surfaces. The option of the tilting nose, used for Concorde, is now discarded for economic reasons. Furthermore, the shape of these aircraft is dictated by economic constraints. These constraints give rise notably to the fact that the available transparent surface areas do not make it possible to cover the requisite field of vision in the landing stage.
These aircraft could therefore ultimately have either no transparent surface or only a transparent surface that gives only an upward field of vision.
Solutions to improve the field of vision are used in conventional aircraft, essentially for night flight or in poor conditions of visibility.
One known approach reconstitutes, for example, an artificial image of the outside world on a display by means of energy sensors and/or synthesis from a data base.
An image is sometimes presented in a head-up collimator. The collimated image, which conforms to the outside world, is superimposed optically on this outside world, covering a part of the transparent surfaces of the cockpit.
These known approaches are not suited to future supersonic aircraft for they enable the improvement of vision in the existing field of vision, notably that given by the transparent surfaces. They cannot be used to improve the field of vision in preserving the conformity of the display to real conditions when the transparent surface becomes insufficient.